It’s finally time to hit the road.

A Baker’s Passport, with over 200 recipes for sweet and savory global classics, is based on this very blog and now available to buy here:

A BAKER’S PASSPORT: Recipes for Breads, Savory Pies, Vegetarian Dishes, Tarts, Cakes, and Cookie Classics.

When I began Food Market Gypsy, my dream was to have a cookbook emerge from the pages and pictures of the blog, and here it is. I also hoped this blog could be a chronicle, or more like a confessional, of the emotional challenges of producing a commercial cookbook. But the lows were so very LOW that I worried I would depress my readers. Let’s just say rejection was a common theme. At times, I tried hard to give this book up and find a new hobby – French class, pilates – no luck. I tried writing other book proposals to shake off my obsession with food markets and classic cuisines and all the culinary history they contain. But every other road I traveled turned into this one; every other creative project took this one’s shape like a stubborn ghost committed to the haunting. Thanks to the Contributors below, who took the inevitable ride with me and brought so much talent to the process, I arrived at my destination. The reward of finally having the book I meant to write, the story I meant to tell, the photos of the culinary world I had to chase, is a delight bigger than a thousand lows could ever ballast. And yet, this ghost is STRONG. When I finished the book and wrote the Foreword, I found myself promising A Baker’s Passport: Volume II.

SO MUCH GLOBAL BAKING … SO MANY RECIPES … THE ROAD IS FOREVER … LET’S GO…

We’re Getting Good Reviews…

From Chef Lisi-Macready

“I met Susie when we both were Chef Instructors in California and members of WCR. If you know her you already know what a treat it is that she is sharing this book with us… If not, here is what you might not know about Susie…she is an amazing chef, a curious and engaged, funny human whose view of the world is colored with kindness and culinary skill. We mere mortals get to accompany her through her travels, thoughts and (especially) delicious endeavors. I know this like her other books, Chocolate Bliss and Hand-Crafted Candy Bars, will be easy to follow, precise, well researched and well written.”

From Carole Bloom, Author, Bite-Size Desserts and Caramel:

“Susie has curated fun & tasty recipes that will please you, your family, & your guests.”

FOR SUSIE’S OTHER BOOKS:

From LA Weekly: What’s great about this book is its approachability. Hand-Crafted Candy Bars is not another tome on the Art of the Chocolatier or the Art of the Confectioner. Because much as we love Ewald Notter’s pastillage technique, most weekends, we’d rather just make chocolate taffy (p. 61), peanut butter-chocolate cups (p. 46) or dark-chocolate dipped almond coconut bars (p. 37), which sound infinitely better than a certain commercial candy with the same ingredients. Another bonus: here, the number of recipes is hardly overwhelming, so making “nut n’ nougat” bars on a Saturday afternoon (better yet, on a “sick day”) seems completely doable.

The chapter we keep flipping back to is “Candy Bar Basics” with gives you just that — all the basics you need to make you own bars. These are the building blocks of the recipes in other sections of the book: soft nougat, marzipan, fondant, four versions of caramel (and really, when is one ever enough?), basic toffee, fudge, vanilla cookie dough that works as a good candy bar base, chocolate coatings of various kinds. Many of the candies, say Norris and Heeger, freeze well. Good news if you’re having a dessert party, bad news if your afternoon willpower is no stronger than ours.

The authors’ personal favorite candy in the book? We’re pretty impressed they were able to come to an agreement. The candy is one they have dubbed “molten chocolate peanut bars,” little milk chocolate-covered logs filled with pillowy vanilla bean nougat and a layer of crunchy peanut butter-caramel. “It has everything we love in a candy bar – chewiness, nuttiness, sweet-saltiness, and that irresistible chocolate-caramel combo,” they say in the recipe Introduction. Next weekend.

In the meantime, we’ll be whipping up a little chocolate nougat — in less than half an hour. Let the candy bar experiments begin. http://blogs.laweekly.com/squidink/2013/03/hand_crafted_candy_bars_book.php

From STARCHEFS.COM:
Chocolate Bliss Sensuous Recipes, Spa Treatments, and Other Divine Indulgences Oct 2009 Ten Speed Press Pastry chef, instructor, TV producer, chocolatier, cookbook author and general guru of all things chocolate Susie Norris delivers a gem of a book dedicated to the culture and cuisine her favorite subject. Not only does Norris provide chocolate recipes to sate even the most demanding choco-philes, she offers an introduction to the world of chocolate that opens up the much-loved, if oft underestimated, ingredient to a wider appreciation. Norris wants her reader to get to know chocolate on a more intimate level, whether that reader is pastry chef, fellow chocolatier, or mere enthusiast; she offers instructions on setting up a “tasting flight” for chocolate after the fashion of wine and provides lists of online resources useful for purchasing and further education. In addition to a wealth of savory and sweet recipes featuring chocolate, Norris’ book delves into the varieties, origins, and uses of chocolate, as well as its health benefits, gift-giving potential, and topical quotes from fellow chocolate lovers. Show Less

…and we could sure use a good review from you in the comments below or on Amazon.

Grab you passport! Hit the road! Tell us about your baking adventures!